In some data center environments, multiple long-haul optical communication paths from a wide area network (e.g., via an Internet backbone network) may be communicatively coupled to a data center building that houses one or more computing systems, such as web servers, application servers, data storage systems, and so on. The use of multiple long-haul paths may provide a certain level of path diversity to the data center building, so that the failure of a single path does not prohibit access to the computing systems in the building. Moreover, in addition to the multiple long-haul paths, the data center building may provide more than one main point of entry (MPOE) for each of the long-haul paths, with each MPOE providing optical and/or electrical communication components coupling one or more long-haul paths to the computing systems of that building. As a result, the failure of one MPOE at the building will not prevent access to the computing systems of that building.
However, in such data center environments, a single failure (e.g., a power failure affecting the entire data center building) may still isolate the computing systems of the data center from access by the long-haul optical paths, even if the computing systems of the building remain in an operational state, as all MPOEs provided by that building may become inoperative under such circumstances.